Pioneers of the Stars

Chapter 12

Yuto had never felt more embarrassed than now. In fact, it was the first time he felt this way, having spent much of his life as an antisocial. He wanted to bury his head while Jack kept calling him "Dad" causing the hilarity of the whole crew.

"Jack, can you tell us how you got to this island?" Mordred asked, intrigued.

"Jack doesn't know," Jack answered casually, delivering an old newspaper to Yuto. "We had to look for daddy but we didn't know where you were, so we got help from sailors."

"What happened to those sailors?" Drake asked.

"Um... Jack killed them," Jack replied, pulling out his knives. "Jack was hungry after all."

"Don't tell me that..." Mordred muttered, making a disgusted face.

Yamato turned to Yuto who, unlike Mordred, looked relaxed.

"Jack is an accumulation of souls of children who died shortly after birth or were aborted," Yuto said, pointing at Jack. "Precisely because they are children's souls, she has no clear conception of good and evil."

The child in front of them was the infamous serial killer who had murdered five prostitutes in the London neighbourhood of Whitechapel in the late 1880s. Five were the number of crimes she was credited with, but perhaps the victims were many more, also because Sherlock Holmes had decided never to reveal the truth behind Jack the Ripper.

"I think I understand, but why does she call you like that?" Yamato asked.

A tick appeared on Yuto's forehead. "Because she thinks I'm her father."

"Aren't you one?" A dark aura hovered over Jack, her eyes glowed with blood while the killing intent that she released would have made even a Navy admiral shudder.

Yuto snapped his tongue, annoyed. "I'm saying we're not related by blood. That's all."

Yuto was anything but stupid and knew that Jack would have no problem killing him if he denied her existence. Embarrassment aside, he really considered Jack as part of his family given their past together.

"Anyway, do you know if there are other people here?" Yuto asked.

Jack nodded and agreed to accompany them to the castle that stood atop the hill.

"JACK-CHAAAN!"

Something landed on Jack, unsettling Yuto, Yamato, and Mordred, and catapulting Jack out the door with her.

"What the hell?" Mordred muttered.

Looking out, the bullet was nothing more than a girl with red hair, long up to her shoulders, with two locks that gently framed her thin and smiling face. She was wearing a simple black T-shirt with a panda print on it, tight jeans and loafers.

"Where were you?!" the girl cried, as she rubbed her cheek against Jack's. "Uta-chan and I were scared we couldn't find you!"

"You were the only one who was scared, Rosalia-san," another girl arrived.

Yuto turned and immediately noticed the girl. She was tall as him, with her hair half white and half red, gathered in two long ponytails with two circular braids at the end and a lock covering her left eye. She was wearing a white shirt, dark jeans, and brown loafers.

"Wait, you're Rosalia, aren't you?" Yuto muttered as she turned towards the red-haired girl.

The girl named Rosalia stopped and stared intensely at Yuto.

"Do you know her?" Mordred looked at Yuto confused.

"She is Aisha's younger sister," Yuto replied, leaving Mordred and Yamato surprised.